Introducing Three New Types of Posts

Greetings fellow sojourners!  Today I will be introducing three new types of blog posts in order to provide some variance for my own thoughts and for you, the lovely readers!  These three types of posts will have distinct titles: Foretaste, Aftertaste, and the Darkwash Letters.

Foretaste - Quite often reflections and tangent thoughts arise while I am praying and writing sermons for the coming week.  These posts will be those reflections and thoughts that have to do with the coming sermon that week.  Perhaps they will be included in the sermon, perhaps not.  Consider these posts to be like an appetizer to the main meal that is the coming sermon.

Aftertaste - Ever have that taste of food linger in your mouth?  I know you have - that garlic stains one's breath for the next two days, am I right?  Much like the aftertaste in food, these posts will be reflections on the previous sermon.  Perhaps they will dive into unexplored territory, deeper practical implications of the text, or perhaps they will review something that I forgot (*GASP* - Yup I forget things mid-sermon and skip them) to include in the main sermon, but still wish to share.

The Darkwash Letters - One of the great devotional classics of our age is C.S. Lewis' The Screwtape Letters, being written between 1942 - 1961 when it was finally published as a whole book.  This book flips the world on its head by taking on the perspective of a demon (technically a more experienced tempter) writing to a "in the field" demon (someone who has just begun their tempting journey).  The senior demon gives practical advice on how to tempt people away from Jesus and into hell - and in the process reveals subtle and ordinary parts of our lives to actually be temptations that hinder, if not down-right stop, our journeys towards Christ.  In a powerful way, they speak directly to our lives to help shape our Christian walks by stopping what we are currently doing, by resisting temptation, and pursuing Jesus. 

The Darkwash Letters is my attempt to recapture this powerful devotional but write them to speak to our post-modern situation. Lewis does not address the ultra-sexualized, consumerist, entertainment saturated, rich U.S. American culture and society today. Therefore, "in the manner of" The Screwtape Letters I will be taking up this task, writing from my own personal experiences about temptations that hinder the Christian journey. These may or may not resonate with your experiences, and may or may not be how demons actually tempt us. These reflections will be from a "senior demon" to a "minor demon tempter" on how best to hinder our Christian walks - so do the opposite of what is in the letters.